


Escape

by lonelywalker



Category: Cowboys & Aliens (2011)
Genre: AU, Abduction, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, M/M, present day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-21
Updated: 2011-08-21
Packaged: 2017-10-22 21:34:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten years ago, a hooker named Jake saved the Sheriff from a gang of illegal aliens. Every year since, John’s shown up in Vegas to express his gratitude.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Escape

The world is full of people trying to find a place to lose themselves.

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, the American west was the place to do just that. Great swathes of land unexplored by white men, haunted by Native Americans and Mexicans and troublemakers. A dangerous, violent place, to be sure, but a place before Google and photo ID, where even the most hardened criminal could carve out a new life for himself.

The west still holds out that sort of hope for some people today. Las Vegas is one of the places they’re drawn to, seeking their fortune in gambling, or simply wishing to disappear into the crowd.

In Vegas, far from the strip, there’s a bar with no gaudy flashing lights, but many dedicated regulars. They even have pretty girls, because pretty girls with no money or morals flood into the city on a daily basis, and not all of them can be showgirls. They have a bartender too. His name is Jake. They pay him in cash and don’t ask too many questions.

Maybe he was pretty once. Rumor has it he had his nose broken by the Mob, maybe a cheekbone as well, a fractured jaw. He has the most beautiful eyes in three states, biceps bulging under a tight white t-shirt, and a tendency to snap the fingers of men who try to take him home.

Once a year, every year for the past decade, Jake makes an exception.

He could pretend he doesn’t care, and he does a very good job of pretending to pretend, but the truth is he spends his shift with one eye on the door and another on his watch. He can’t concentrate on his conversations with the girls, the waiters, the dirty old men trying to chat him up while pretending they’re here for the big-breasted strippers. He even messes up some drinks orders, and that’s what makes him head out back to smoke and breathe and chill.

Goddamn fucking Sheriff Taggart. He can tell himself as much as he wants to that it had begun like any another arrangement, the way he’d rented himself out when he was a kid just trying to survive without working at Blockbuster. But honestly nothing with Taggart has been “just” anything.

His entire life, he’d been an expert at keeping his head down. No drugs. No Mob links. No pimp. Nothing bigtime to get the cops interested. Just fucking and sucking and getting paid and going home. And then John… Then _Sheriff Taggart_ had got himself mixed up in some gang of illegal immigrants from god knows where, and Jake just _had_ to get it into his head to rescue him.

Good deeds never go unpunished. Jake had got John to the hospital, bleeding and bruised with a concussion so bad it was a miracle his skull hadn’t caved in. But then the gang had got to him, and the cops to them. One simple good deed, one decision to save a good man, and Jake had found himself wanted both by the cops, who thought he was part of the gang, and the gang themselves.

John hadn’t remembered much, but he’d remembered Jake. John had risked his job to get Jake out of New Mexico with some cash, a fake ID, and a beaten-up Mustang. That should’ve been the last they ever saw each other.

Except John had vacationed in Vegas the next year with some cop buddies, and Jake had been tending bar. He could’ve slipped into the shadows then, too. Could’ve kept himself to himself and steered away from trouble. But, perhaps for the same reason he’d saved John in the first place, he’d got involved.

They’d kissed out the back of the club, right where Jake takes his smoke breaks now, and it had taken everything either of them had to wait until John’s hotel for the rest. And, every year since then…

“Jake Lonergan.”

Jake has to turn away to disguise the smile that comes to his lips as he drops the cigarette to the ground, stubbing it out with his heel.

“You know, every year I think you’ll have gone. Just disappeared.”

“Yeah. And every year I think you’re gonna have shaved that fuckin’ mustache.”

John Taggart. Ten years ago he had a mop of blond hair and a body just about as hard as Jake’s. The years haven’t been kind to either of them in many ways, but he’s still an incredible kisser.

“Nothin’ wrong with my mustache,” John mutters, his fingers in Jake’s hair as they kiss. He’s a few inches taller than Jake, but he’s never been a physical threat, never tried to hurt him, to blackmail him…

The door thuds closed as Jake steps back into it, struggling to breathe let alone collect his thoughts. “John,” he says, running his hands down over the other man’s coat. “John…” It’s supposed to be the start of a suggestion that they go somewhere, but winds up just being gasps of pleasure and passion and relief that, after yet another year, here they are again.

And then someone’s pushing the door against Jake’s back. “Jake? Hey, Jake, some slimeball stiffed me on the… oh, hey… didn’t see you had company.”

One of the strippers. Sweet girl, but right now Jake wants to punch her as John steps away, bowing his head, looking like he wants to dissipate like cigarette smoke. At least he’s not wearing his badge and gun.

“Yeah, I got a job. Ask Sam to cover for me.”

And then he smacks John’s ass. “C’mon, lover boy. Let’s go find a cab.”

***

John has a suite at one of the classier hotels, but it’s still a place obviously designed to host call girls for the evening. Hot tub. Silk (or faux-silk, Jake can’t be sure) sheets. If John only takes one vacation a year, at least he makes it count.

“So how’s life?” Jake asks, throwing himself down on the couch. On the ride over John had been strangely reluctant to talk, as if the taxi driver hadn’t already heard everything a hundred times before.

John closes and locks the door. There’s a suitcase unopened by the bed. Visiting Jake must’ve been the very first thing he did after checking in. “Same as always. More or less. Emmett’s got an internship with a veterinary surgeon. Shacking up with some girl. He seems happy.”

“Good.” Jake pats himself down for cigarettes. “How ‘bout you? Seeing anyone?”

“Absolution’s a small town, Jake. Not too many interested men, and far too many other people who _would_ be interested if I started dating.” John takes off his coat and sits down with a sigh, moving Jake’s feet onto his lap.

“So come out. Who the fuck cares anymore?”

John looks at him. “As I said. Absolution’s a small town.”

Jake looks right back and decides to forget about smoking now that there’s a much more attractive vice in town. “Fuck I’ve missed your sorry ass.”

“I have an amazing ass,” John says with half a smile, setting about prying off Jake’s boots and throwing them to the floor.

“I know you do.”

For years Jake had been an expert at playing this game, using his body to drive men crazy, to maximize his fee. But John doesn’t pay for anything except the room, food and drink, and Jake wouldn’t want him to. So he stays quiet, watching John take off his boots and then the socks, before closing his eyes as John starts to rub his feet with deft fingers. Being on his feet all night, six nights a week, can take its toll.

“You…” Jake moans with pleasure, sitting up slightly so he can strip off his own t-shirt. “You can do that all night if you want to.”

He can feel John’s eyes on his naked chest without needing to see them. The old scar from the knife wound in his side seems to burn whenever John’s watching him. Jake pulls a foot free and rubs it against the crotch of John’s slacks. Old habits or not, he can’t resist playing.

“You know there’s no way we’re not winding up in that hot tub tonight.”

John’s palm runs down over his abs, hot to the touch. “I thought you might say that.”

The tiny apartment Jake rents has a bathtub, but only about enough water pressure to put out a cigarette butt. He gets in the hot tub with almost childlike delight, dipping down under the water to wet his hair before sliding over to play with the various buttons.

It’s only once he’s upped the temperature and figured out how to turn on the bubbling jets that he turns his attention back to John. John, who undoes one button at a time, who never learned to be professionally unashamed of his body. Over the years, Jake’s learned that the absolute best thing to do is stare. Somehow, with a naked man gazing at him like he wants to devour him piece by piece, it’s impossible for John to do anything but strip and get in the fucking tub.

Which of course lets Jake move over and straddle him, pushing wet fingers through dry hair, kissing him like actual mouth-to-mouth resuscitation might be required.

“Gonna let you fuck me so hard…” he murmurs, very much approving of the way John’s hands are moving down his back, gripping his ass and pulling him in. John might not get much practice in during the year, but when he’s here…

“I’m retiring next year,” John says, clear as a bell in his ear, as though they’re not exactly thirty seconds away from fucking in a hot tub, but actually having some sort of business meeting in sedate suits at a conference table.

But if John’s going to bring this up before getting his rocks off. Well. It must be serious. Jake backs up, cupping John’s face still. “You’re retiring.”

Okay. John’s about sixty. Not entirely unreasonable. He must have a fair bit saved up too. Sheriffs aren’t paid badly and Emmett’s been out on his own for years…

“I want to be with you, Jake.”

Oh. There it is. The kind of declaration that, in the old days, would make Jake turn tail and run out of the building without even stopping to get dressed. Now he just drops his hands with a splash into the water. “No you don’t.”

“I love you.”

“No you don’t.”

“I’ve been in love with you for ten years, but I was scared. But we’re both getting too old for this, Jake. We should be together. Live together. The cops aren’t interested in you anymore, and everyone in that gang is either dead or in prison. Hell, we can even get married now in some states.”

With every declaration, it seems stranger to Jake that he’s still sitting on this man’s lap, still inexplicably _here_ and not, say, ten blocks away, ready to skip town and find another job, another apartment, another fraction of a life. _Married?_ His heart is thudding in his chest at the very thought, the taste of adrenaline on his tongue. _Fight or flight response, Jake. Get your ass out of here._

He leans forward and kisses John instead, deeper this time, nicotine tongue seeking out John’s, if only to stop him from talking. His hand slides down between them, finding John’s snake of a cock and beginning to stroke it hard.

By the time he takes his mouth from John’s, the Sheriff is breathing hard, and Jake can feel him flinch when he runs a thumb over the head of John’s cock. “If I had gills I’d blow you right here,” Jake says.

John gulps down a breath. “I’d probably come faster than you’d run out of air, if you keep that up.”

“Yeah, can’t have that, can we?”

All talk of serious stuff aside, Jake’s getting hard too in a way he never had when he was working. With John it just… happens. No need to have a guy suck him hard, or lie back and think of whichever movie star came to mind. John just makes him… _happy_.

And with that thought, all the tension goes out of him just as if John’s spent half an hour working out all the knots from tight muscles. “John, I…”

He doesn’t get another word out, because now John’s kissing him, fingers digging into his hips deep enough to leave bruises. “God, Jake, I just want you. Now, if not forever.”

Jake should tell him to shut up, to knock off the romance and just get down to the hard, carnal part of what they’re both there for. But John seems to have remembered that Jake isn’t the only one who can take control, and within a second Jake’s underwater.

“You know,” John is saying when the bubbles pop Jake up to the surface and he frantically scrubs water from his eyes. “It’s supposed to be highly unhygienic to fuck in one of these.”

“Figures.”

They get the sheets wet instead. The towels might be temptingly warm and fluffy, but that would mean waiting, and neither of them has the patience tonight. Jake lies out on the bed, arms pillowing his head as he looks up at John, taking in his shaggy hair, ridiculous mustache, soft eyes…

Jake licks his lips and stretches out his hand. “C’mon, Sheriff.”

Once, early on, Jake had thought of getting himself a cowboy hat and some chaps for a little roleplay. If he was going to be fucked by a genuine American sheriff, he might as well make the most of it. But this has never been about all of John’s duties and responsibilities. It’s been an escape, for both of them.

John always takes what’s an almost irritating amount of time kissing Jake, stroking his thighs, adoring every part of him before getting to work on his ass with gentle fingers and more lubricant than is ever really necessary. “What am I? A slip ‘n’ slide?” Jake asks, raising his hips and planting his feet on John’s broad shoulders while John’s slicked-up fingers penetrate him.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Maybe I want you to. Ever think of that?”

John shakes his head slightly, and moves in so he can kiss Jake’s chest. “No you don’t.”

Every time they do this, Jake winds up spending at least ten seconds thinking about how he’s too old for this, and should really look into taking yoga classes at the Y if he’s going to let John put him in these positions. But then John is all the way inside him with that fucking big cock of his, and the deep, aching heat of it all is quickly resolving itself into something much more pleasurable.

“Ohhh, Jesus…”

For all the exercise he does, all the early-morning runs, he’s still utterly breathless at the sight and feel of John sliding into him, fucking him impossibly deep, at an angle that soon begins to make his body react in just the right way.

It’s almost embarrassing how aroused John makes him. He used to be a _professional_ , after all. John’s just a closeted cop who fucks a guy a couple of times a year. But he’s biting down on his lip, feeling himself flush pink with need and desire, desperate to touch himself but clenching fistfuls of the sheets instead. If he starts jerking himself off he won’t last nearly long enough.

“Hey.”

Jake blinks up into John’s eyes. “Hey.”

“Why’d you save me that first time?”

Maybe this is how John gets confessions out of perps. Jake swallows, trying to collect his thoughts and tear away his focus from the way John’s cock is slowly fucking him all the way to orgasm. “I… Jesus, John. You were abducted by aliens. I mean, illegal aliens. Venezuelans or some shit. Which isn’t even the _point_. It was just the right thing to do!”

“There’s a lot of right things you’ve never done, Jake.”

It must be age that lets him do this. Pass fifty and you get some kind of sexual superpowers. Jake sucks in a breath and wipes a sheen of sweat from his forehead. “What d’you want me to say? That I saved you because you’re fucking hot? Because I hoped you’d repay me with sexual favors?”

John just might have the most beautiful smile in the world. “No,” he says, and reaches to stroke Jake’s cheek. “I want the truth.”

The truth. Jake squeezes his eyes closed and turns his face into John’s hand, breathing in the scent of him, of masculinity and security and sex in hot tubs. They’ve been together for ten years. Or ten days. Either way, it just might be the longest relationship Jake’s ever had.

“I wanted to stop living that way,” he says finally. “You were a good man being hurt. And it really was the right thing to do. Someone told me once that God doesn’t care who you were, only who you are. And I like the person I am with you, John. Always have. Even when you were just an unconscious bloody wreck I was hauling to the ER.”

John’s smile is unfaltering. “I’m a real charmer.”

Jake hooks a leg around John’s hip so he can sit up enough to kiss him, his fingers searching out that old wound underneath John’s hair. “You know I love you too,” he whispers, as if he can say it quietly enough that he might not even hear himself.

“Shhh.” John’s fingers brush his lips, and he finally - _finally_ \- picks up the pace, rocking into Jake harder and faster than before.

Jake sinks back down onto the bed, thankful that John’s not giving him any time to regret those words. Or to do anything except take it all, stroke after stroke, as his cock swells and aches and begs to be touched. The tendons in his thighs hurt like hell. If he can move at all tomorrow it’ll be a goddamn miracle, but there’s no way in hell he’s going to move now, not the way his body feels primed to explode, and especially not when he can see John like this, completely out of control for one of the few moments in his life.

His climax slams into him just as hard as John’s cock, his legs tightening around John and pulling him deeper in as he comes over his own stomach, head thrown back in ecstasy. And, just as he does, he can feel John coming too, hear that familiar cry and the sudden wetness, deep and warm. God he loves having John come inside him. That sort of thing used to be accompanied by worrying blood tests at even more worrying clinics. Not now.

“You know, I really should take up yoga if we’re going to be doing this regularly,” John murmurs as he drops down to the mattress next to Jake.

 _Regularly_.

Jake reaches down to pull the blanket up over them both, and the lights go out. It’s still early, as far as his nights go, but they’ll probably wake up later. Order room service and some wine. Figure out how best to shock the health inspectors in the hot tub.

John throws an arm around him and kisses the top of his head, hair still damp. His protector. His lover.

Jake’s eyes begin to become accustomed to the darkness. Over there, just a few feet away, is a sliver of light underneath the door. In ten seconds he could grab his clothes and be out in the corridor, running for the elevator.

“I could use a good man,” John murmurs by his ear, perhaps already dreaming.

Jake hugs John’s arm to his chest, yawns, and closes his eyes. “Yes you could.”


End file.
